While she was talking she was also pulling forward two of the easiest chairs, playing the hostess prettily and stealing a lash-hidden glance now and then at the tall senor with such blue eyes and hair the like of which she had never seen, and the mouth curved like the lips of a woman.

The young man whom she addressed as Jose rose negligently and greeted them punctiliously; seated himself again, picked up a guitar and strummed a minor chord lazily.

“Don Andres is busy at the corrals,” Jose volunteered, when the girl had gone.  “He will return soon.  You had a disagreeable experience, Senor?  One of my vaqueros heard the story in town.  There was a rumor that the Vigilantes were sending out parties to search for you when Carlos started home.  Senor Allen is lucky to get off so easily.”

Jack held a match unlighted in his fingers while he studied the face of Jose.  The tone of him had jarred, but his features were wiped clean of any expression save faint boredom; and his fingers, plucking a plaintive fragment of a fandango from the strings, belied the sarcasm Jack had suspected.  Don Andres himself, at that moment coming eagerly across from the hut at the end of the row, saved the necessity of replying.

“Welcome home, amigo mio!” cried the don, hurrying up the steps, sombrero in hand.  “Never has sight of a horse pleased me as when Diego led yours to the stable.  Thrice welcome—­since you bring your friend to honor my poor household with his presence.”

No need to measure guardedly those tones, or that manner.  Don Andres Picardo was as clean, as honest, and as kindly as the sunshine that mellowed the dim distances behind him.  The two came to their feet unconsciously and received his handclasp with inner humility.  Don Andres held Dade’s hand a shade longer than the most gracious hospitality demanded, while his eyes dwelt solicitously upon his face, browned near to the shade of a native son of those western slopes.

“I heard of your brave deed, Senor—­of how you rode into the midst of the Vigilantes and snatched your friend from under the very shadow of the oak.  I did not hear that you escaped their vengeance afterwards, and I feared greatly lest harm had befallen you.  Dios!  It was gallantly done, like a knight of olden times—­”

“Oh, no.  I didn’t rescue any lady, Don Andres.  Just Jack—­and he was in a fair way to rescue himself, by the way.  It wasn’t anything much, but I suppose the story did grow pretty big by the time it got to you.”

“And does your friend also call it a little thing?” The don turned quizzically to Jack.

“He does not,” Jack returned promptly, although his ears were listening attentively for a nearer approach of the girl-voice he heard within the house.  “He calls it one of the big things Dade is always doing for his friends.”  He dropped a hand on Dade’s shoulder and shook him with an affectionate make-believe of disfavor.  “He’s always risking his valuable neck to save my worthless one, Don Andres.  He means well, but he doesn’t know any better.  He packed me out of a nest of Indians once, just as foolishly; we were coming out from Texas at the time.  You’d be amazed at some of the things I could tell you about him—­”